


A Hand To Hold, And The Stars To Run To

by knittedace



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Ear Piercing, Earrings, Gen, One Shot, Post Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 05:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15163505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittedace/pseuds/knittedace
Summary: Shortly after regenerating, the Doctor gets her ear pierced.





	A Hand To Hold, And The Stars To Run To

Winter, she’d definitely landed in winter. The cold nipped through her tatty jacket, and the shops were still busy and glowing hours after sunset. No Christmas decorations, so either too early or too late for that - shame, she loved Christmas. What else? Britain! She was in Britain. Somewhere in the north of England, by the accents. Not Yorkshire, which was disappointing given the new accent. She’d have to make a special trip. Once she’d got her TARDIS back. That might take a while.

 

Winter, England, new body, new Doctor. And this time she hadn’t been dumped straight into an alien invasion - which meant she had no idea what to do with herself.

 

The Doctor wandered down a shopping street, drawing strange looks as she savoured her fifth Greggs sausage roll. She’d been _hungry_ , okay, she’d just regenerated. It took a lot out of you, especially when you got to her age. Although the strange looks might be because she was wearing ripped up men’s clothes that were a little bloodstained from the fall and didn’t fit her. She probably wasn’t in Manchester, she decided. She _never_ got weird looks in Manchester.

 

She should find some new clothes. Oh, she loved this part of regeneration - picking out a new look, a new style, figuring out another piece of who she was now. Had last-Doctor really been dreading this? Hard to imagine why.

 

Problem, though: her wardrobe was in the TARDIS, and the TARDIS had gone AWOL. She’d nicked clothes from hospitals before in a pinch, but the nearest hospital might be anywhere. There were lots of clothes shops around; maybe she should just buy some? She wandered on, pulling faces at her lovely cheerful new reflection in the shop windows, ignoring all the dresses and jumpers and coats. Too boring. Too colourless. Not her style. She hadn’t a clue what her style was, but she’d know it when she saw it, and-

 

The Doctor stopped, one foot hovering above the pavement, then took a few steps backwards to stare into a shop window.

 

This one didn’t sell clothes. The writing on the glass said _needlework: body piercing and tattoo parlour_ , and the window was stuffed with pictures of colourful tattoos and samples of shiny body jewellery. It was the latter that caught her eye, and she grinned blindingly at her own reflection. Forget clothes! She wanted her ears pierced.

 

She shoved the last of the sausage roll into her mouth in one go, jammed the leftover paper bag in her pocket, and pushed the shop door open.

 

It had one of those jingly bells that went off when you walked in; she closed the door and opened it again, just to be delighted by it. It was warm inside, with lots of tattoo art on the walls and a comfy purple sofa that begged to be sat on. In one corner was a cash register and a young woman behind it, reading a magazine; she looked up as the Doctor walked in and smiled - although her eyebrows were frowning.

 

‘Hi, can I help you? If you want a tattoo I’m afraid Chris is off for the week, but I can book you an appointment.’

 

‘Mmmph,’ the Doctor said, realising that shoving half a sausage roll in her mouth might not have been a good idea. Her new mouth was smaller than her old one, too. She felt like someone had thrown her in the wash on too high a temperature; everything had shrunk a bit. She pointed to her mouth in explanation, chewed furiously, and swallowed. ‘Sorry. I was _famished_. And then I walked past here and my brain just went _wheeee!_ And I needed to get my ears pierced. I think that’s the kind of thing my brain does now.’

 

‘Okaaay,’ said the woman, stepping out from behind the counter. She was wearing a really pretty lacy blouse, and the Doctor contemplated it for a moment before deciding that no, lace wasn’t her style this time either. ‘Are you alright, love?’

 

‘Yes?’ The Doctor followed the woman’s gaze, and realised she was frowning at her clothes - and the bloodstains on the cuffs of her shirt, from where she’d picked herself up after hitting the ground. She’d landed hard, but she’d had enough regeneration energy in her to heal a few broken bones, and it’d meant she’d been unconscious through the worst of the regeneration sickness, so really it was a good thing. She should fall out of her TARDIS every time she regenerated. ‘Oh, that, it’s nothing, I just… cut myself shaving? No, that doesn’t make sense, I probably can’t even grow a beard any more, can I? Nevermind. Oh! It’s fake blood. Fancy dress,’ she said, pleased with herself for coming up with that one.

 

‘Right,’ said the woman, looking her over. ‘If you’re sure you’re not hurt…’ She stuck the pen she was holding into her thick, dark hair, and waved the Doctor towards the display cabinets. ‘Ear piercing. Why don’t you take a look and see if there’s anything you’d like? My name’s Asha, by the way.’

 

‘Lovely to meet you,’ the Doctor said, and bounced over to the cabinets. They were tall glass-fronted shelves, with a giddying array of bits of metal she could potentially stick into her body. She kept shifting from shelf to shelf, ducking down and standing up, not knowing where to look first. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve wanted my ears pierced, actually, it just didn’t work out before. First time I thought about it was, ohhh, right after I’d been exiled. Only Liz laughed at me and then the Brigadier - well, military man - he was so scathing about the whole idea, we had a proper bloody row about it and it put me off completely. _Bloody_ row,’ she repeated, liking the sound of it in her new mouth. ‘Grace laughed at the idea too, but that was much later. And oh, Peri! She was all for it at first but then I spent three hours trying to pick one out. She wound up dragging me out of the shop and refusing to let me set foot in one again. Hope that doesn’t happen this time.’

 

‘I’m sure I can help you decide. Have you looked at these?’ Asha asked, leaning across the Doctor to point at a rack of earrings. Only she tilted her head awkwardly towards the Doctor’s face, instead of at the jewellery. Like she was trying to smell the Doctor’s breath.

 

‘Are you trying to check if I’m drunk?’

 

Asha didn’t look even slightly apologetic. ‘The way you’re acting? Drunk or concussed is my best guess. And I don’t pierce people whose thinking is muddled.’

 

‘I am _not_ \- hang on, I can prove it! Give me a number, any number. A big one, though. And not a nice round one, either, they’re too easy.’

 

‘Uh. Six thousand, eight hundred and… thirty-two?’

 

‘Squared, is forty-six million, six hundred and seventy-six thousand, two hundred and twenty-four,’ the Doctor said. ‘Want a higher power? They’re easy but the bigger ones take forever to say. In English, anyway.’

 

Asha raised an eyebrow at her, then walked over to the cash desk and pulled out a calculator. The Doctor leaned back against the cabinet and grinned, catching the tip of her tongue between her teeth, as Asha tapped at the buttons and then turned round. ‘Okay, so you’re a maths genius. A _drunk_ maths genius.’

 

‘Oh, for - how do I prove I’m not drunk? Do you have a breathalyser? I could build you one if you don’t.’

 

‘Why would we have a breathalyser? Look, I’ll help you pick out some jewellery now and talk about what you want doing. But I think we should book you an appointment and you can come back later for the actual piercing, okay?’

 

The Doctor pouted, and then tried to stare at her own lip in mild betrayal. Was this a pouty regeneration? Was that a thing she did, this time round? ‘But I don’t want to come back next week, I lost my TARDIS, I don’t have any way to get to next week - except for living through to it, I suppose… This isn’t helping persuade you I’m fine, is it?’ Asha’s lips quivered like she was trying to hide a smile; she shook her head. The Doctor drummed her fingers on the side of the case. ‘Might as well choose something while I figure out how to prove I'm sober. Ooooh, those! I want those.’

 

There was a ridiculously pretty little cluster of stars at the back of one tray, and the Doctor pressed a hand against the glass until Asha unlocked the case. ‘The stars?’ Asha asked.

 

‘Yes. The stars.’ She was about to tell Asha how that particular cluster looked like the view of Earth’s nearby stars from an asteroid that did amazing milkshakes, and how a whole thirty-two percent of species in the universe drew stars in that abstract spiky way which was rather a lot when you thought about it, and how her hearts itched to get out there and explore as many of those stars as possible because even in her long life she’d only touched the _tiniest fraction_ of them. But she was trying to convince Asha she was human and sober and entirely sane, so she just smiled, and offered a rather insipid, ‘I love the stars.’

 

‘Yeah? My nephew’s the same, wants to be an astronaut when he grows up,’ Asha said, pulling the pair of earrings out of the rack and giving them to the Doctor to admire. ‘So where are you having them? Your lobes?’

 

The Doctor flicked one earlobe with her finger as she considered it. ‘Earlobes are a bit… boring, don’t you think? Where else could I put them?’

 

The answer turned out to be almost anywhere. The Doctor had seen lots of people with piercings, of course - she’d seen lots of people full stop - but she hadn’t really catalogued all the variations. Fortunately, Asha had; she brought out a binder full of photos of piercings she’d done, to demonstrate the different locations. The Doctor sat on the purple sofa and flicked through it, with the same kind of fluttery excitement she always felt when picking out her new look. All these possibilities to consider and discard, figuring out her likes and dislikes - everything so gloriously unknown, so full of potential..

 

And then she turned a page and saw the one that made everything inside her fizz. ‘This one,’ she said, holding the binder up for Asha and grinning. It was perfect. The ear in the picture had a silver heart in the earlobe and an anchor near the top of the ear, and a dangling chain connecting the two. She couldn’t have said why she liked it more than the others; it was simply right. ‘Just on one side, though. On my - this side, is that right or left?’

 

‘That’s your right. And nice choice. Shall I book you in?’

 

‘Oh, no, not yet, _because_ \- I don’t want two stars, do I? I need to pick out another earring!’ She dashed back across the shop, and Asha trailed after her.

 

Picking out the second earring was harder. She wanted one with meaning, like the stars had meaning. There was a tiny silver planet with rings, but that was too much of a space theme. She thought back to the picture in the binder; maybe a heart? But humans always seemed to associate hearts with romance, and that wasn’t her kind of thing. Asha pulled out a few suggestions - a couple her past selves would have loved, including a sleeping cat that would have solved her sixth’s indecisiveness problem - but none of them were _her_.

 

Until Asha brought down another tray for her to look at. She was about to dismiss it - it was mostly flowers, and she didn’t feel floral - but there were a few others mixed in, so she glanced over them. And there it was; a pair of hands, clasped together. ‘Oh, it’s _perfect_ ,’ she said, picking the earring out of the tray, holding it in her palm to admire it.

 

‘That one? Yeah, I like it. Wasn’t what I thought you’d go for - I was guessing you’d pick something to match the stars.’

 

‘But it _does_ match them,’ the Doctor said, though of course she couldn’t explain why. So many people she’d taken to see the stars, hand-in-hand through time and space - and that bit of metal made her think of all of them. From those very first journeys with Susan and Ian and Barbara, right up to a few days ago on that spaceship, Nardole and Bill and Missy. Old friends and new friends, and all of them gone, now.

 

She ran a finger over the tiny pair of hands, imagining what they’d think of this new her. Nardole would come up with something sarcastic to say, and Missy would laugh herself silly, and Bill… Bill was probably dead. Brilliant, clever Bill. Oh, she missed them all. Being a Time Lord meant she could feel exactly how far away, in time and space, she was from the ship where they’d been separated, and every fraction of the distance felt infinite and eternal. She was new, and she was alone.

 

‘… are you okay?’

 

The Doctor blinked, and realised her vision had gone fuzzy. A tear dripped down her cheek, and she hastily wiped it on a frayed sleeve cuff. ‘Sorry. Miles away.’

 

‘Yeah. Look, I stick holes in people for a living, I’m not any kind of shrink. But something’s up, isn’t it?’

 

‘You could say that. I just… I lost some people, lately.’

 

Asha’s dark eyes went round. ‘Lost as in… dead? I’m sorry.’

 

‘Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. I’m living a life I wasn’t even sure I wanted to _have_ twenty-four hours ago, and don’t get me wrong, everything’s new and brilliant and I want to get out there and throw myself into it, but I’m also… figuring out what it means to be me again. And missing the people I left behind. The earring just made me think of them, that’s all.’

 

Asha nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘And you wound up in my shop, acting like you’re off your head. Trying to get some control over what’s going on inside by changing something on the outside, maybe?’

 

‘… that might be part of it,’ the Doctor said. ‘You sure you’re not a shrink?’

 

‘Definitely not. Much prefer being allowed to stab my customers, thanks,’ she said, drawing a laugh from the Doctor. ‘Listen, are you absolutely sure you want these piercings? You’re not going to wake up tomorrow and regret it?’

 

‘I am absolutely one hundred percent sure,’ the Doctor said. ‘And sober. And as close to being of sound mind as I ever get.’

 

‘Alright. Come do the paperwork, and then I’ll get those piercings in your ear.’

 

The Doctor fairly bounced over to the sofa to sign forms - and discuss payment, which she hadn’t even thought about. Fortunately she’d soniced a cash machine to pay for her sausage rolls, and got plenty out with the vague idea she might have to find a hotel. The paperwork was easy enough, even if she had to invent most of her details. She gave her accommodation in Bristol as her address since it was the only one she knew by heart, and gave the phone number of Missy’s favourite takeaway for the same reason. The only issue came when Asha checked over the paperwork and frowned. ‘Your name’s Doctor John Smith?’

 

‘Yes?’ the Doctor asked. No one had ever thought that was odd before - oh, right. She glanced down at her new figure. Well, she wasn’t changing her alias because people thought John was a boy’s name. Thanks to time travel, she’d been using it longer than humanity had: therefore, she had dibs. ‘Oh, stop getting so hung up on boy things and girl things. I had this friend called Bill, she never…’

 

‘Is she one of the people you lost?’

 

‘Yeah. But the point is, she was a girl and called Bill, so I can be a girl and called John.’

 

‘I wasn’t arguing! Just wanted to make sure I had it right, your handwriting’s not the best. Do you want to come through to the back, John?’

 

‘Call me the Doctor.’

 

The piercing room was more austere than the shop front, possibly to make it easier to keep clean. It was painted a calming blue with a canvas painting of an orchid on one wall, and more pictures of tattoos on the wall beside it. There was a padded seat, which Asha directed her to sit on, and a bench-like thing which the Doctor guessed was for tattoos. Asha busied herself preparing her tools, falling into a well-practised patter about what she was doing and how the whole process worked. She drew two dots on the Doctor’s ear to mark the piercing points, confirmed they were in the right place, and got the needle ready. ‘You nervous?’

 

‘Nope,’ the Doctor said. ‘Ready when you are.’

 

‘On three, then. One, two, three-’ She barely felt the pain, only the pressure of the needle in her ear. ‘There. Now I’ll pop the earring in, and-’

 

Asha gasped, taking a step back like she’d been burnt. The Doctor tried fruitlessly to glance at her own ear, then frowned at Asha. ‘What is it? It’s not gone wrong or something, has it? This is a brand new ear.’

 

‘Your ear… it’s _glowing_.’

 

‘Oh, hell,’ the Doctor said, concentrating on trying to pull the leftover regeneration energy back under her skin. ‘Sorry, I thought all that was gone by now. Didn’t mean to scare you.’

 

‘Is this some kind of practical joke?’ Asha asked, her face slightly grey. The Doctor shook her head - very carefully, since she still had a sharp needle in her earlobe. ‘Okay. Is… are you not human?’

 

‘Right second time!’ the Doctor said, holding up a hand for a high five. Asha just stared at it, as though she were the alien and had no idea what to do. ‘High five? No?’ the Doctor asked, eyes wide, and Asha tapped her hand against the Doctor’s as if it might explode at a touch.

 

‘What’s an alien doing in my shop?’

 

‘Uh… getting my ears pierced? Same as everyone else - well, except those who want other things pierced, I guess, or a tattoo - do you think I should get one of them too? Hmm, no, not sure it’s me. I’ll think about it though. Never mind, getting distracted. I’m not that scary, honestly.’

 

Her ear was starting to throb; she reached up, and Asha automatically snapped out, ‘Don’t touch it.’

 

‘Sorry.’

 

Asha shook her head. ‘Wait, if you’re an alien… how does your biology even work? For ear piercings, I mean. What was that light? Do you have toxic blood or anything? Do you even have to worry about getting infections in that piercing - or are you gonna get wiped out by the common cold, like the aliens in that Mars story?’

 

‘The light was regeneration energy, my blood’s not toxic to humans, and I can get infections but I’ve had plenty of colds and come out fine. Infection shouldn't be a problem right now, though. If I’ve still got that much regeneration energy in me, it’ll be healed up by tomorrow.’

 

‘Super healing. Of course you’re an alien with super healing. This is ridiculous.’ She stepped closer and tentatively did something to the Doctor’s ear - putting the actual earring in, the Doctor assumed. Then she busied herself disposing of the used needle. Focusing on familiar routines in the face of the unexpected: _very_ human. ‘So you said that light was, uh, regeneration energy.’

 

‘Well, when we’re dying - my species, that is - we sort of…’ She threw out her hands and wiggled her fingers to mime an explosion. ‘And everything changes - face, body, even our personality, a bit. We’re still the same person. But I was a bloke less than a day ago, can you believe it?’

 

‘Congratulations?’

 

‘Thanks! Never been a woman before, it’s ridiculously exciting. Anyway. That’s regeneration. And the energy hangs around for a while after, patches you up if you need it. I grew back a hand once, that was handy - ha! I didn’t mean to scare you like that, I thought I’d used it all up when I fell.’

 

Asha frowned. ‘What do you mean, when you fell?’

 

‘Yeah, I fell all the way from…’ The Doctor took one look at Asha’s expression of alarm and adjusted the truth slightly. ‘My ship, which wasn’t very high up at all. Barely off the ground, really.’

 

‘So that’s not fancy dress, it’s _actual blood_? You should be in a hospital!’

 

‘I healed already. See?’ She pulled up one sleeve to show her arm - which she was pretty sure she’d broken, and had definitely at least scraped up, going by the bloodstains on her sleeve. ‘Besides, me in hospitals is a really bad idea. Alien, remember. Different biology. Some of the drugs you humans use would kill me - or just make me hallucinate. I accidentally took paracetamol once when I had the flu, _that_ was a fun weekend. I thought I was an ostrich.’

 

‘So all that mad babbling earlier, that was… alien stuff, then. And I’m guessing John Smith isn’t your real name.’

 

‘Nope. But I’ve been using it for centuries, I’m not switching now.’

 

‘Centuries?’ Asha said, fumbling with the second needle. ‘How old are you?’

 

‘Honestly, I’ve no idea. I keep making up numbers but I actually lost track several bodies ago. Time travel does that to you.’

 

‘Time- look,’ Asha said, waving the second needle around. ‘If you want me to actually get this piercing in your ear, you’re gonna have to stop destroying my view of how the world works every five seconds, ok? I’ll get to the point of sticking the thing in and you’ll mention how you, I don’t know, own a lightsaber and you’re best friends with Spock, and I’ll stab you in the wrong place.’

 

‘I _did_ build a lightsaber once - actually, a couple of times. Not as fun to swing around as the films would have you believe. And-’ Asha gave her a look. ‘Okay, shutting up while you do the pokey bit.’

 

Asha got the second piercing in with no trouble - and no more glowing, now the Doctor was focusing on keeping that last errant bit of energy inside. ‘All done,’ she said, bringing out a mirror to show the Doctor. It was the first time she’d actually seen a proper reflection of her face, and she was briefly captivated by her new look. Her eyes seemed so much brighter than before, and when she grinned her face all crinkled up. She loved it. And she loved the earrings; they looked _right_ , settled on her ear like that. The first piece of her new self, slotting into place.

 

‘Perfect,’ she said, handing the mirror back to Asha. ‘Can’t I have the chain on yet, though?

 

‘Not till it’s healed - too much movement for a new piercing. Though according to you, you’ll only have to wait a few hours. I’m still giving you all the aftercare information, though. Come on, let’s get the details sorted out.’

 

She gave the Doctor the chain in a little sealed plastic bag, and pages of instructions on how to care for her new piercing and what to do if anything went wrong. The Doctor paid up; Asha looked at the money doubtfully. ‘This is real money, yeah? It’s not gonna… vanish in the morning or something?’

 

‘I’m an alien, not a fairy,’ the Doctor said. ‘Got it out a cash machine half an hour ago. It’s actual, real money.’ She didn’t mention it was technically stolen - it would show up on the ATM records as a valid transaction, no one would ever notice, and besides, she’d saved the Earth enough times they could afford to pay for her earrings.

 

‘I still hardly believe this is real,’ Asha said, slipping the notes into her till. You, I mean. Just standing there. Being alien. Getting your ears pierced. I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and decide it was all a dream. Listen - do you know where you’re gonna stay tonight? Or get some clothes - or a bite to eat? I can give you some suggestions. You do have enough money, right - you didn’t just spend the last of it on getting your ears done?’

 

‘I’ve got plenty, don’t worry about me. Suggestions would be great, though, I don’t-’

 

Before she could say that she didn’t even know what city she was in, a dull bang echoed through the room; the ground shivered, and the Doctor grabbed the table to keep herself upright. Asha gasped. ‘What was that? Was that a bomb?’

 

‘Nope. Something hitting the ground, hard. About…’ The Doctor bounced on her heels, testing. ‘Two streets away. Odds are, it’s either my TARDIS, or my traditional post-regeneration alien invasion, showing up late. Oooh, that’s a tongue-twister! Either way, means I’d better go - do you want to come with me?’

 

‘You what?’

 

‘Come with me. Find out what that was. Help save the Earth, if it needs it. Travel in time and space and see extraordinary things. Want to?’

 

‘You must be mental,’ Asha said. ‘I’ve got a shop to run. Piercing an alien was enough sci-fi for me, thank you.’

 

‘Worth a try,’ the Doctor said, shrugging. ‘Maybe I’ll see you again, might decide I want something in my other ear. Till then - have a _brilliant_ life. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

 

She dashed out the door, pausing on the pavement. It had just started trying to rain, and the water was cool on her face. She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the anxious murmur of pedestrians and the distant wail of alarms, feeling the turn of the planet beneath her feet. Home, in a way. And whatever had happened was somewhere to her left. She turned on the spot and took off, dodging lamps and bins and people, running as fast as she could towards her next adventure.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am slowly dying in the wait for the next season (and also in this heatwave) so therefore, fic. Because we all love Thirteen’s earrings.
> 
> I should note that I stole the paracetamol hallucination thing from a friend of mine, who actually does hallucinate if she takes paracetamol (it’s a very unusual side effect).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
